Takesure Chinyama vs Robert Lewandowski

By Robson Sharuko

WHEN Takesure Chinyama made history as the first non-European player to win the Golden Boot in the Ekstraklasa in May 2009, special mention was given to a 21-year-old rookie forward who had made a huge impact, in his first season in the Polish top-flight league.

His name was Robert Lewandowski.

He played his first season at Lech Poznan, after top-scoring in the Polish Third and Second Divisions with Znicz Pruszkow, and scored 14 goals in an impressive spell for one cutting his milk teeth with the big boys of the Premiership.

His tally was five goals fewer than Chinyama’s haul of 19, which gave the then Legia Warsaw forward the Golden Boot that he shared with Pawel Brozek of Wisla Krakow, who topped a good season by also being voted as the Polish Player of the Year.

While Chinyama and Brozek grabbed the individual honours, Polish football took a bow and gave special mention to the goal-scoring instincts of the new boy on the bloc, Lewandowski, whose 14 goals in his debut Premiership season was as much an achievement as it was bold pronouncement of his arrival on the big stage.

He was dubbed “the one to watch.”

And they were not wrong.

“Regarded by some as the new Wodzimierz Lubaski, Poland’s 48-goal record international goalscorer, the 21-year-old was top scorer in the Polish Third and Second divisions with Znicz Pruszków, prompting Lech to pay €400 000 for him last summer,” read a Uefa review of that Polish top-flight season.

“Having registered 14 times this season, that already looks like a bargain, with ‘Lewy’ also impressing at international level, contributing three goals in his first seven Poland games.”

The following season, in 2009/2010, Lewandowski fulfilled his promise by winning the Golden Boot in the Ekstraklasa with 18 goals and, as his star exploded, leading to a move to Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund, Chinyama struggled with injuries.

It’s difficult today, especially as the world takes a bow and hails Lewandowski for his phenomenal goal-scoring performance that ripped Real Madrid apart in Germany on Wednesday night, to imagine that the Polish forward and Chinyama were once on the same wave length.

While the two strikers are still playing professional football, both based in foreign lands, their stories provide a sharp contrast and as Lewandoski opens himself up to the globe, with bids of £40 million now being reported by potential suitors, Chinyama is stuck at Orlando Pirates where he hasn’t been given the leeway to prove himself.

Lewandowski is being courted by Manchester United, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Paris St-Germain.

Chinyama joined Pirates for US$75 000 from Dynamos last year and Bucs coach, Roger da Sa, has favoured Zambian forward, Collins Mbesuma, with the Zimbabwean hitman having to contend with either a place on the bench or out of the team.

And, even after scoring five goals in two legs of a Champions League tie last month, he found himself being dropped for the next game on the African safari.

Chinyama, is not a bitter man, though, and watched, with a sense of both pride and a feeling of what might have been, from his home in Johannesburg on Wednesday night, as Lewandowski turned into a demolition man and destroyed Real Madrid in a Champions League semi-final.

Interestingly, after winning the Golden Boot in Poland in May 2009, Chinyama was offered a chance to move to the Bundesliga and join Eintracht Frankfurt, then a top team, but a huge selling price put on his head by Legia Warsaw destroyed his dreams for a breakthrough.

“My club demanded a lot of money but I think my manager also didn’t handle the issue very well because he should have negotiated for a breakthrough, something that protected my interests, but that didn’t happen and I missed that chance,” Chinyama told The Herald last night.

“Maybe it was meant to be like that, because midway during that season, when I was supposed to be in Germany, I got injured in Poland and that’s when the injury issues started.

“I think it’s my fate, that’s life mate and if God meant that things would happen that way, who am I to say it should have been different, I take it as a setback, that’s all, I don’t spend days thinking that I could have been this and I could have done that.

“I’m fine with what I have done with my career and I consider myself a lucky guy because I have played at a very good level and I don’t know where I would have been, if that Germany move had come through, but that’s life.”

Chinyama remembers Lewandowski very well.

“The way he was playing in his first season, everyone could tell that he was going to be a very big star and I could also see that he was just a class apart and he has just proved that,” said Chinyama.

“As I watched him yesterday (Wednesday) I felt really proud that a player from a league that I played in could do that on such a big scale.

“When he made it four goals, I called my manager in Harare and told him that only players from the Polish top league can score four goals in a Champions League match, Robert (in Europe) and myself (in Africa), because I also scored four in one game for Orlando Pirates this year.

“It’s something that they also picked up in the Polish media and I was reading an article today (yesterday) where a journalist was writing about me scoring four for Pirates and Robert scoring four for Dortmund.

“It’s a tough league in Poland and it turns you into a very tough player and I think Robert is representing all the Polish footballers, and all those who have played in that top league, very well.”

The similarity between Chinyama and Lewandowski, this season, does not just end in the fact that they both scored four goals, in a Champions League tie, for their clubs. They are both second, on the goal-scoring charts, in the Uefa and Caf Champions League.

Lewandowski has 10 goals in the Uefa Champions League, second only to Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid, while Chinyama has five goals, from just two appearances in the Caf Champions League, after his superb show against minnows Djabal.

Chinyama is second, on the Caf Champions League goal-scoring list, to Mamadou Soro, dubbed the “Ivorian Messi”, who has scored six goals for AFAD Djekanoun, including five in the 5-1 rout of Diamond Stars of Sierra Leone. The Herald